His Royal Highness the Purple One delivers a strong 88-minute concert during San Diego leg of West Coast tour

Rock ’n’ roll royalty — he of the Prince variety — held court in San Diego on Friday night, and he showed why he was king.

Stripped of all the trappings of a stadium-size concert, the diminutive 54-year-old singer-songwriter delivered a big performance during the 8 p.m. show Friday, the first of four over two consecutive nights at the 1,000-capacity Hard Rock Hotel Legends Ballroom.

The cozy setting at Friday’s first concert — the seventh stop on a nine-city West Coast tour — gave the evening a “come and sit awhile” feel, even though the performance was a standing room-general admission show with Prince narrating the night’s storyline as he sang a mix of songs, old and new and a handful of fan favorites.

The 8 p.m. concert didn’t start until 8:38 p.m., and the tardy Prince quickly offered a royal apology to the room, about two-thirds full: “Sorry for the delay, San Diego. I’m going to make it up to you. I promise.”

And proving a royal promise isn’t meant to be broken, the Rock and Roll Hall of Famer definitely made it up to his San Diego audience during the 88-minute set, a revved up evening punctuated by some excellent guitar playing by Prince and his accompanying all-female band, the 3rd Eye Girl trio.

Prince and 3rd Eye Girl

When: 8 p.m. and 11:30 p.m., Friday, May 3, and Saturday, May 4

Where: Legends Ballroom, Hard Rock Hotel, 207 Fifth Ave., downtown

Tickets: $250 each (plus $25 service charge); all tickets are general-admission, standing-room-only

Wearing black pants and a paisley-patterned black coat — a subtle nod, perhaps, to his now-defunct Paisley Park Record label back in Chanhassen, Minn. — Prince kicked off the evening with an exuberant version of “Let’s Go Crazy,” his 1984 hit with his band The Revolution, which formed in 1979 in Minneapolis and disbanded in 1986.

His opening song jump-started a night that focused less on Prince the personality and more on Prince the musician. The venue’s intimacy limited what could be on stage, so what was left were the bare necessities — some guitars, some drums, a keyboard, some lights and a whole lot of chutzpah.

And that’s all that was really needed.

Who knew you could get away with what the Grammy-winning performer and his band got away with Friday night? At their best, Prince and his ladies dug deep musically with stunning guitar work, taking turns downstage becoming one with their electric guitars. At their worst, during a couple of instances during the night when the instruments drowned out his voice, it was still pretty darn good music, so you quickly forgave them.

His huge stage presence — yes, even on a small stage, you knew you were in the presence of music royalty — draped the evening in an “I-can’t-believe-he’s-that-close” aura. And perhaps therein lies the magic of this intimate “Live Out Loud” tour, which kicked off April 15 at the 1,144-capacity Vogue Theater in Vancouver. A venue so intimate, you have no other choice but to feel so very privileged to be that close to greatness.